1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an erosion resistant surface and a method of producing same and finds particular application in providing increased erosion life for components of hydraulic systems wherein a high velocity fluid containing abrasive particulates is impinged upon or flows along such surface. Surfaces subject to such erosion are found in pumps, valves, conduits, diffusion chambers, fluid cleaners and other forms of hydraulic apparatus.
2. Field of the Invention
In many industrial applications, and particularly in oil well pumping operations, it is necessary to pump, transport and/or clean high velocity fluids containing significant amounts of abrasive particulates. For example, in a typical oil well, the fluid pumped from the well generally contains a significant amount of sand. The surfaces of pumps, valves, conduits, cleaning apparatus and other fluid handling components subjected to the impact of such high velocity fluid, or the surfaces along which the high velocity fluid flows, are subject to relatively fast erosion, resulting in a short useful life of the particular component. Even when such components are fabricated from such highly erosion resistant materials as tungsten carbide or molybdenum, the erosion rate is still far greater than desired.
In recent years, coating materials have been developed for such surfaces which involve relatively expensive metallic alloys which are applied as an integral coating with a thickness typically on the order of 0.001 to 0.002 inches. If the particular component has a surface which can be eroded to a depth of ten thousandths (0.010) inch before having to be discarded, and the erosion resistance of a 0.001 inch coating is ten times that of the base metal, it is readily apparent that the application of the 0.001 inch coating would result in a doubling of the useful life of the component and, while this is desirable, it still does not represent a good return on the increased cost of providing the exotic coating material.
There is, therefore, a distinct need for increasing the erosion resistance of surfaces to high velocity fluids containing abrasive particulates to effect an increase in useful life of the surface by, typically, a factor of four or more.